


only the lonely

by dreamclub



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Comfort, Confessions, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, bed sharing, brief making out but like super brief, its cute please read it uwu, jungwoo is scared of storms and yukhei convinces himself theyre the only people in the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 17:05:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15800880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamclub/pseuds/dreamclub
Summary: Jungwoo is scared of storms. Yukhei narrows his world down to him and Jungwoo, alone in their hotel room, swapping secrets in their pushed-together beds. When it starts storming, Yukhei counts that in too. Just him, Jungwoo, and the storm. It's like a breeding ground for romance, right?





	only the lonely

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoy! more notes @ the end uwu, this is my first nct fic and my first fic in a loooong time as well as my longest ever so !!!!
> 
> also, there are references to the princess bride, where a woman thinks her lover is dead only to find he waited five years to be able to find her again, and then fought a bunch to get her. not integral to the plot just handy to know
> 
> twit: @ redxuxi
> 
> cc: curiouscat.me/xuxiclub

Moments like these exist in a void. It’s simple: there are four walls, a bed, and Yukhei and Jungwoo. Yukhei runs through a checklist of their surroundings, cataloging what’s allowed to exist in their universe, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling from his spot in Jungwoo’s lap. Vast city sprawls around them, but in his mind, all that counts is their small hotel room.

Only dim flashes from the muted television and clouded moonlight illuminates the room. Jungwoo yawns. A commercial blinks blue-purple-pink. He blinks against the light.

Running his fingers through Yukhei’s hair, he says, voice just above a whisper, “I wonder if anyone could wait five years for me.”

They’d just finished watching The Princess Bride, subtitles so small that Yukhei had had to squint even with his glasses, and were discussing it in hushed tones like they always did. Jungwoo looks so soft, so unsure, that Yukhei can’t resist. He reaches a hand up and rubs awkward circles into Jungwoo’s back.

“Some people are worth waiting for,” Yukhei breaks the silence. “Even if they are blanket hogs that cry so loudly you can’t hear the movie.”

Jungwoo tugs his hair lightly, whining and threatening to push his head out of his lap. Yukhei just laughs. 

It’s so tender, being in bed in the quiet like this, teasing each other, that Yukhei almost forgets himself for a moment. Time doesn’t exist. His responsibilities as an idol don’t exist. Just him, Jungwoo, and the peacefulness of being with someone you trust. Fuck it, he decides, hand going still on Jungwoo’s back. Slowly, gently he draws path to the hem of his sweater, searching for bare skin between the gap of his flannel pants and his soft, knit top.

Thunder claps. When did it start raining? Yukhei thinks the storm can be included in their little pocket of the world, too. Jungwoo jumps, and Yukhei figures the moment is over, because he’s shifting his legs nervously under Yukhei’s head.

“Yukhei,” Jungwoo says, voice still small, lilting under the pounding rain. 

He sits up, blood rushing to his head, and closes his eyes to reorient himself. When he opens them, he’s face-to-face with a teary Jungwoo.

Seeing someone so sweet cry hurts. It isn’t like he doesn’t do it often; emotion has always come easily for him, powerful behind his singing and passionate in his cheering-up speeches. He’d shed tears about nearly every absurd thing that could be named. Cute puppies? Check. Running out of his favorite cookies? Check. Yukhei taking back the sweater he’d leant to Jungwoo months ago? Check, on more than one occasion.

But this feels different.

All of the times he’d seen Jungwoo tear up were about trivial things. He’d never held back. Now, surrounded by silence, he’s trying to hold in tears. Like he’s scared to cry.

“What’s wrong, Woo?” Yukhei puts a hand on his thigh, heavy and still.

Jungwoo wipes under his eye with the sleeve of his sweater, sniffling. Outside, the storm rages even harder. Lightning flashes, eerie and too bright. 

“Don’t make fun of me,” Jungwoo warns.

“When have I ever!” Yukhei puts on his best offended voice, poking Jungwoo in his soft stomach and pulling out a soft laugh.

“It’s silly.” Running his hand through his hair, he says, “I just, like, have never been the best with storms. Like, especially at night, I don’t know, it’s childish,”

Yukhei removes his hand, instead leaning his entire body back on Jungwoo in a smothering hug. Jungwoo groans into his shoulder, but he won’t let go. More thunder. More lightening. Jungwoo trembles in his arms, like a puppy when fireworks go off. Secretly, Yukhei thinks it’s endearing.

“We can watch something else,” he says, “I’m sure there are plenty of baby shows on.”

Jungwoo picks up a pillow and smacks him with it, just hard enough to hurt a little. Yukhei pouts, “I just meant it could distract you. You know, in case my wonderful jokes aren’t enough.”

Yukhei stands and walks over to the little desk with a Keurig on it. Tea is calming, right? He runs the machine without any k-cup, just boiling water.

Jungwoo considers it for a moment. Yukhei knows its late, nearly two in the morning, and they have an early flight in the morning. He knows that he’s cranky when he’s tired. He knows that they should have been asleep hours ago. Deep in the pit of his stomach, the same niggling feeling hit him as before: he didn’t care. Only Jungwoo mattered. And if he needed Yukhei to stay up all night reciting nursery rhymes or using his emergency makeup kit to do clown makeup on himself, he would, without so much as a second thought.

As an afterthought, Yukhei walks over to draw the curtains over the windows. Outside, the city is bustling, flashing lights visible through the smog and fog. Rain streaks the glass, distorting the view. Quickly, he closes the curtains. Nobody is outside. The world doesn’t exist. It’s just them. He repeats this like a mantra, over and over, while he waits for the water to boil.

“Okay.” Jungwoo picks up the remote. “I get to choose the show, though.”

Yukhei rummages through Jungwoo’s suitcase for his secret stache of teabags. Jungwoo calls out for vanilla chai while flipping idly through the channels, television still on mute. “You know, I don’t think it’s dumb,” he says it so quietly he needs to repeat himself, to reiterate, “I’m scared of plenty of dumber things. Like mannequins. And certain babies.”

“Babies?” Jungwoo questions, “Oh! Should we watch Mulan again?”

Just like that, the illusion is about to crumble. Fate intervenes just as the outside world is about to leech its way back in.

Lightning strikes. The television turns off. So does the fan in the corner of their room. Whirring despondently, the mini fridge next to it shuts off too. They’re plunged into semi-darkness, only visible to each other by flashes of moonlight filtered through fog and clouds and curtain.

And the Keurig has only made one cup of hot water.

Yukhei grabs it anyway and places it on the bedside table to steep. They’d pushed their two twin beds together in front of the entertainment center, using pillows to fill the crack where the beds met. Every time they room together they do it, and they have these quiet little nights, all alone besides the buzz of the tv.

Some things are ritual.

Like, Jungwoo uses his favorite blanket. When he’d first visited Jungwoo’s dorm as a rookie, Jungwoo had hastily hid it, expecting to be teased. Yukhei thought of his own teddy bear, sitting in it’s special spot in his dorm room, a gift from one of his parent’s first care packages, and asked to use it while they hung out. Jungwoo shared how his Mother had knitted it for him as a baby.

Or how Yukhei always sends Jungwoo pictures of costumed dogs when he’s sad. How they have ongoing playlists where they add new songs they think the other would like. How they always try to surprise each other with the ugliest gifts, a competition that had been raging since their rookie days. 

“Come back,” Jungwoo’s voice breaks, and Yukhei sees him sniffle as lightning flashes, “Please?”

He stumbles over a suitcase in the dark and flops onto the bed.

As soon as Yukhei lays down, Jungwoo whines and slumps onto his shoulder, breath short and hot onto his exposed neck. He burrows in like a kitten, clenched fists pressed up against his side. To Yukhei’s credit, he only freaks out a little. Wonders if Jungwoo can feel his heartbeat, frantic, so clearly affected just by his presence. If he can smell that he had stolen his body wash, the vanilla pine scent that smelled so much like home clinging to his skin. If he’s calmed down by Yukhei’s touch.

He exhales. Shakily. Shifts back so he hits the headboard. Pulls Jungwoo tighter to his side, working his long, lithe fingers in between Jungwoo’s own tightly balled up ones. Smooths the pad of his pointer finger over the indents in Jungwoo’s palm.

“This is unfortunate,” Yukhei whispers, a feat never previously achieved by him. “Once, the power turned off during a storm, and I peed myself.”

“Do I even want to know?” Jungwoo hiccup-laughs, tears wet against Yukhei’s neck. “Just, please, no repeat performances.”

“I was nine! And it was scary,” Yukhei whined, “I’d just watched a horror movie that I wasn’t supposed to and I thought it was God punishing me.”

“Wimp,” Jungwoo squeezes Yukhei’s hand.

“Of course, God wasn’t nearly as frightening as my Mother when she found out her son had stained her couch,” Yukhei laughs quietly, barely managing to refrain from choking up, “I miss her, Woo.”

Thunder claps outside. Jungwoo buries himself deeper into Yukhei’s side.

“I know you do.” Jungwoo runs a thumb over the back of Yukhei’s hand, like he’d just realized they were still connected.

If they were just a room in a void before, now they are just a bed. Yukhei concentrates really hard on the feeling of soft skin on his own, and his world narrows down to their conjoined hands, to the points where their skin touches.

In the dark he can feel like this. Like his heart has been turned inside out, bearing all of his hidden feelings to the world. 

“She’s always been supportive,” Yukhei says. “Even when I was just a kid, singing badly while she tried to work. Dancing at dinner parties. Patience of a saint, that woman.”

“Of course. She’d have to be modern day Mother Theresa to put up with you,” Jungwoo picks his head up from Yukhei’s shoulder so he can see his sharp grin. His teeth glint in the moonlight. Vaguely, Yukhei thinks about those teeth grazing down his neck, to his shoulder, before snapping back to reality. The room comes back into focus. The world crashes down around them.

Yukhei pulls back too. Usually, one of the things he loves most about Jungwoo is his intuition. His tendency to joke just when Yukhei needs it, to rest a calming hand on the small of his back, to smile and nod in all the right places. He’s a brilliant listener. Darkness seems to alter Jungwoo, too, and he becomes less intuitive. Yukhei wonders if maybe it’s his eyes that usually give his feelings away. Near-total darkness obscures them.

Normally during these nights, they’d watch a movie and stay up for hours debating, reading reviews online and sharing opinions, reenacting favorite lines from the movie. Yukhei looks forward to it, a small comfort when his days are packed full of promotion and practice. They always feel separate from the world. Now, with no distractions, it feels painfully out of the ordinary.

This is different.

“You must be pretty patient then too, huh,” Yukhei can’t keep the bitterness from seeping into his voice, too loud for the quiet of the room, sharper than the rain connecting with the windows.

Jungwoo shifts forward again so his arm presses against Yukhei’s, “I love putting up with you.”

Tension visibly melts off of Yukhei. Darkness makes him vulnerable. Moody. Unlike himself. Must be why his heart stutters at the way Jungwoo’s eyelashes cast shadows against his cheeks when lightning fills the room. Definitely why.

“Who else would comfort you during a storm?” Yukhei reaches his arm back and grabs the handle of the mug, “This is probably cold, now.” 

Jungwoo takes from him anyway, hands brushing Yukhei’s own, so unbearably tiny and cold. He tries to drink it laying down, careful to not spill any. He hums. “Still good. And plenty of people.”  
“Nobody knows how to do it like I do, though,” he teases.

“Yeah.” Jungwoo nods.

He curls a leg up over Yukhei’s, pajama pants against bare legs. In a friendly way. Platonic cuddling. Bros being dudes. Yukhei takes a deep breath and rolls over more until he’s practically chest to chest with Jungwoo. Jungwoo rests his mug on Yukhei’s hip, holding the handle to keep it steady. If Yukhei leans forward, just a bit…

Jungwoo’s phone flashes. It had laid, forgotten, between them, for the duration of the movie, and now was the time that Taeyong decided to text them. Perfect. Yukhei doesn’t want him in their little world. In fact, phones are off of the list too.

“It’s Tae,” Jungwoo says, “He wants to know if we’re awake, and if we have power. Says he called the lobby and their backup generator should be turning on soon, and we could go hang out with him and Jaehyun if we want.”

“Tell him we’re sleeping,”

“You want me to lie?” Jungwoo smacks him with the back of his palm, sighing. “If I text him, he’ll know we’re awake.”

Yukhei fake snores until Jungwoo relents and puts down his phone, leaving it unlocked to provide light. Yukhei opens his eyes and realizes his home screen is a picture of them. Not one taken for social media, or even when anyone else was around, just Yukhei sleeping on Jungwoo’s shoulder during their last movie night. He fights back a blush.

“Who’s that handsome devil?” he raises his eyebrows, grabbing for Jungwoo’s phone.

Jungwoo quickly turns it off, plunging them back into darkness. “Why don’t you want to go to their room?”

Yukhei wants to laugh. To scream. To say that in his world, Taeyong and Jaehyun don’t exist. If they step out of the door, they’ll be met with cosmos, with a hurricane, with nothingness. No dark hallway. No staff. To yell that even if the world outside did exist, he’d still want to stay where he was, entangled with Jungwoo.

Aiming for truth, at least partially, he says, “I’m comfortable.”

“In bed? Because these mattresses are pretty lumpy, and the pillows aren’t thick enough, and, uh,” he trails off when he sees the look on Yukhei’s face, eyes adjusted to the lighting.

“How would you know about the pillows? You’ve been laying on me this whole time,” Yukhei smiles.

Jungwoo jumps back immediately, tea sloshing in his mug. Yukhei grabs it and puts it on the bedside table. Then, he grabs Jungwoo’s small waist and pulls him back in until their chests touch and Jungwoo’s head is fit beneath his chin like they’d been made to lay like this.

“I like being with you. Like this,” Yukhei admits.

Jungwoo hums. He says, “Me too. You’re my favorite person to room with.”

Yukhei’s about to say no, not like that, like if I was stranded on a desert island and I could be there with anyone I’d choose you, like when I’m upset I always text you, like I’d permanently glue myself to you just to maintain body contact. Then the power flashes back on. The television flickers to life, gray while it loads, and they both blink against the new light. Yukhei’s phone dings from it’s place on the charger, indicating it’s turned back on.

Jungwoo reaches for the remote almost immediately. Yukhei places a hand over his, stilling it. “Don’t.”

“Do you want to choose the show?” Jungwoo asks, confused, and Yukhei shakes his head no. “Then what?”

Something in Yukhei shakes, and bends, and then snaps. In the daylight, he can ignore it. How he always thinks of Jungwoo before all else, even his own well-being, how he goes out of the way to practice with him and make sure he’s eating well and to be quiet and considerate when he’s not feeling well. How Jungwoo seems to do the same for him.

Here, in their world? It’s been getting increasingly hard. So fuck it.

“Before, you asked if anyone could wait five years for you,” and fuck, he was really doing this, okay, “I would.”

It’s not even dark anymore. He turns off the television. Just him and Jungwoo. Just the thunder and lightning and hail and snow and storm clouds, rolling over the city like a curse, nothing else.

Now it’s his turn to bury his face in Jungwoo’s shoulder, which he feels tense up. Still smells like vanilla. Briefly, he wonders if this is the last time he’d smell that scent. Maybe he’d go out and buy some of the body wash for himself. Pathetic. Eye contact might kill him. He avoids it. Jungwoo’s hand stills from where it was rubbing circles on Yukhei’s hip, and he hadn’t even noticed it was still there until he noted the absence.

“Tea! The Keurig is back on,” Jungwoo springs up, “I’ll make you tea, because you never got any before, and you know I have some really good flavors, like my Mom sent me this dessert tea in her last care package, and,”

Yukhei sits for a moment. Then he stands too. Walks up to Jungwoo, who is frantically pushing buttons. Thunder crashes, the storm getting heavier again, pounding with ferocity against the window. Rakes a hand through his hair. Sighs.

“I’m serious. I’d wait. I’ll wait for however long it takes for you to process this,” Yukhei steps closer, “But I won’t let you run away from this. Not forever.”

Carefully, he takes another step. Places his hand on the desk, next to Jungwoo’s own. 

And then Jungwoo forgets about the machine. He turns to Yukhei with a look on his face like he’s about to punch him. Like if the water was boiled he’d throw it at his face. Out of nowhere, quicker than a flash of lightning, he turns and he’s flush against Yukhei’s chest.

“You’d make a lousy pirate,” and then he’s surging forwards and kissing Yukhei like his life depends on it.

And fuck their tiny universe, their little slice of the world, Yukhei wants to open it up to everyone and scream that this is really happening, holy shit, and look, everyone, Jungwoo was kissing him. Kissing him. Wong Yukhei. Wong Yukhei is being kissed by the prettiest boy in all of Korea. Holy shit.

Jungwoo deepens the kiss, teeth pressing together for a moment before Yukhei pulls back to trail his lips down Jungwoo’s neck, which is covered in way too much fabric. Finally, he’s able to feel the skin of Jungwoo’s hips, and he tugs insistently at his sweater, hinting that he wanted it off.

Instead, Jungwoo grabs Yukhei’s chin and tilts it back to give himself better access. He leans in and kisses it gently, “I won’t run away,” another kiss, “Because I’m not scared,” another, “It’s me and you against the world,” a scrape of teeth, gentle as to not leave a mark, “I just never thought you’d confess.”

Wrapping a hand around Jungwoo’s waist, he backs them up Jungwoo's thighs hit the bedframe. He's ready to fall back on the bed when Jungwoo stops his assault on his neck and peppers his lips with softer kisses, a far cry from what they’d been doing before. Jungwoo flips them so Yukhei is touching the bed, and then pushes back until they fall. Skinny arms cage Yukhei in. Lightning flashes. Yukhei almost blacks out. Having Jungwoo above him like this is nearly unreal.

If he woke up the next morning and realized he'd dreamed the whole thing he wouldn't be surprised. Jungwoo leans down and kisses him again, languid but chaste, no tongue or scraping teeth. He pulls back so their foreheads touch.

“You said you’d wait for me, right?”

Yukhei nods, trying to lean in for another kiss.

“Then wait until morning. It’s late, and I want to be completely coherent when this happens for real.” he smiles.

Jungwoo rolls over and latches onto Yukhei's side, tugging the hotel blanket over their waists. Hair tickles Yukhei’s chin, but aside from that it’s perfect. Jungwoo is perfect. He reaches a tiny palm up and places it on Yukhei’s heart, and Yukhei tries to slow it down but that’s pretty much impossible, so he resigns to knowing that Jungwoo knows just how far gone he is for him. 

“Just to be clear, this is happening?” Yukhei asks, vulnerable and slightly out of breath.

“I’d wait for you too, you know.” Jungwoo kisses him goodnight. “Even if you’re oblivious and took two years to realize that I’m all yours.”

And then they fall asleep, the storm forgotten in the background, their isolated universe forgotten by Yukhei. He didn’t have to convince himself it was just them anymore. Now it really could be, nearly whenever he wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to make this very atmospheric and cozy, let me know how i did? feedback is very welcomed :)


End file.
